Acanthocybium solandri

This, my friends, is a Wahoo fish, Acanthocybium solandri. It inhabits tropical waters and my dreams, for I am DONE with my organizational behavior class! WAHOOOOOO! I am off to finish packing for the Isle Royale trip, and get some sleep. I owe multiples of you e-mails; I will catch up with you soon! Hooray!

pearls before breakfast

So - I have something! It's called eosinophilic esophagitis, and it's not particularly fun (I'll be on antacids & steroids at least for the summer, at which time the doc will re-assess), but it's not bad either considering some of the other nasty things it might have been. (I don't know if you can say "huzzah" to that, but I think I'll do it anyway: huzzah!)

Things are cooking right along; I'm feeling seriously overwhelmed in this last push toward being set for the backpacking trip next week - work, home life, and school life are all pulling me in crazy directions, but in happy news I'm going to see Prince Caspian with Joce on Saturday, backpacking next week, heading up to see Amy at the end of May, having three special people getting married in the next five months, and in general doing well. Oh - and the Spurs are still hanging in there!! Not that I've had a chance to watch any games at all lately :( but still - woo hoo!

burninating

It's kind of weird: there are several things "burninating" in my life right now. In no particular order:

burninatey thing 1: esophagus. So I went in Friday to get a follow-up endoscopy. Apparently I have a fairly screwed up esophagus and should really be on antacids the rest of my life, along with needing more tests for sprue and allergies to try to lessen the bad things that somethin is doing to me. I'm supposed to call in Thursday for the results of some more biopsies they did. Oh, and I have a hiatal hernia which I forgot that they had told me on my first endoscopy. I just found out my Grandma had one of those too, so I guess I'm in good company! Endoscopies: not recommended.

burninatey thing 2: soles. As in the Sole Burner! I did it. I didn't do outstandingly or anything, but I did manage to run most of the way! Zah hoo. I had fun hanging out with Barb & Marie before-hand, and - most importantly - we raised nearly $300 for the American Cancer Society. It was weird to be running/walking with 6000 other people... completely new experience for me. Newbie/outsider observation: you never see people's faces in such events. Just their backsides. This was only 5k; after a marathon you probably have to ask people to turn around so you can recognize 'em!

3: love. Have I mentioned Katie and Joel are ENGAGED?! I went wedding dress shopping with Katie and her mom Saturday afternoon and we had a great time. Will probably go again Friday afternoon.

4: backpacking stoves. I've been transitioning from reading up on backpacking in general to figuring out food/recipes. As of last count, there are six of us, and I'm kind of crazy about having good AND quick food in the middle of the wilderness. I've been dehydrating purple rice and venison burger so far, still need to do more rice and apples. Because I'm a geek - and we really were shooting around substantial amounts of e-mail to figure out the various details - I did throw out a shell of a wiki to help us coordinate it. We used one of these to help us coordinate the New Zealand trip, and that was helpful, and it's looking like this one will be too.

burninatey thing 5: need to finish class. I'd like to have it done by next Wednesday - an extremely aggressive goal considering all of the things going on that besides what's been mentioned above. *crossing fingers!*

And on a different note:

My beautiful cousin Abby was finally able to leave the hospital today. It's been a h***ish journey for her and her husband; they lost baby Harper Lee, and then Abby still had to get her colon removed last week. They're home now, and hopefully the recovery and healing will now take place. Please pray for them...

light, love, and bees

Three gosh-awfully like-able topics. I've read this guy's posts on an off, and occasionally liked them, but this one really tripped my trigger. Thought I'd share!

public safety warning

I don't usually repeat/forward this kind of information, but this one caught my attention and I felt obligated to do something to pass it along - these incidents seem to be happening to many people I know:

Public Safety Warning: Mad Procrastinators at Large.

While not normally known to be particularly vicious, a virulent strain of procrastinator attacks has outbroken recently. Of most concern with this particular strain is the incubation period. The victim may or may not know that the long, detailed conversation he is having with the procrastinator was procrastination until it's too late to gracefully extract himself from the conversation. At this level of entanglement the stock bag of excuses (needing to "wash the hair" and so on) fall short and the victim is stuck helplessly "ooh", "ahhh" and "uh-huhhing" until finally falling over from complete exhaustion. Fortunately this stage brings on the only behavior that's been known to slow the progression of the condition: absolute silence on the part of the victim.

If you are contacted by a suspected procrastinator, please make no response whatever and immediately report the encounter to the authorities. Any details you can provide (date/time of contact, conversational topic attempted) will be of use in informing other potential victims before it's too late.

Running list of conversational topics that may indicate the unwelcome advances of a procrastinator:

• backpacking (gear, destinations, routes, shoes)
• books
• travel
  
• the state of health care
• using "Lean" methodologies to improve health care delivery
• adult education
• organizational knowledge management
• wikis, blogs, RSS
• phooning
• youtube
  
• cooking
• baking
• CS Lewis
• politics
• religion
• world peace

Please - let me know if there are any topics you've heard of that were missed in the above article! (photo from fartoolittleattention on flickr)

RSS

Happy RSS Day! If you don't know what that is, and you're reading this, it really could make your life easier! Check it out: http://rssday.org/

kissy boots

Shame is a great motivator. Money works nearly as well. Please note the tiny bit of the Status Bar that is now filled in for my Organizational Behavior course.
In more interesting news, some people in the world have new shoes! Ain't they pretty, though? My friend Tammy and I went shoe shopping today - she's trying to get geared up for our backpacking trip on Memorial Day weekend, and my trail runners are getting worn. And we both ended up with the same shoe! (I'm a little concerned that no one on our backpacking trip will be able to tell us apart).
This past week a few of us were researching both sides of the whole light backpacking/need for super-supportive (heavy) hiking boots debate - and now you know where Tammy and I landed on it! Javier kind of went in between with some higher-topped hiking boots that are super-comfy and actually quite light. It should work out well as we're planning on having him carry most of our gear. I feel kind of sad to leave my heavy hiking boots behind, but I used them last summer as work boots on the St. Louis trip and they worked great - so they won't just be taking up space in my closet!
Er - and if you've never heard of Kissy Boots, that's probably ok - it's definitely not for every sense of humor - but it's from Teen Girl Squad, Issue 8.

failure (please send $$)

For those of you who may labor under the impression that I have my act together, it's confession time. I just wasted $65 extending the deadline for my class because I've been doing everything BUT schoolwork for the last few months. Can't tell you how frustrated and ashamed I feel.

And along the same lines: I've been registered for a while to run in the Sole Burner, a run/walk for fighting cancer. But I just realized that all my fund raising was supposed to be done by this coming Thursday. So this is short notice, but would you be willing to sponsor me? Here's the info I'm supposed to fill out. Thank you!

In other news, I've been following a saga with my cousin and her husband - she was pregnant and went through horrible, pregnancy-induced colitis, and just this past weekend they lost the baby. It's been too much for me to write about... but please pray for Abby and Jeremy as they hopefully get her recovered soon to the point where she can go home, and that they'll have healing after this traumatic time.

all this beauty

Apparently The Weepies are coming out with a new album this Tuesday. For this week only, they are giving away the title song Hideaway for free, and offering the rest of the album's full songs by streaming sound. I was clicking through bits of the songs (I mostly like 'em!), and fell in love with All This Beauty (last one!)... it reminds me of some of my favorite times ever: various backpacking, camping, kayaking, and hiking trips with with my friends on Lake Superior. Check it out while it's still free and let me know if you like it too!

I'm younger than that now

Apparently this is my 50th post, but that doesn't seem right, so I'll talk about my birthday instead. If you must have birthdays - and really, I think you must - perhaps try having them like this:

• have different coworkers take you out for at least two meals
• invite a bunch of friends who don't know each other to dinner at Koreana (that is everybody's favorite, right?). So cool when your favorite people meet your other favorite people!
• get lots of jolly calls and voice mail messages and birthday cards and "howdy"s on facebook
  
• help a friend put on a baby shower for her sister
• have a little surprise birthday party put on for you by the above exhausted people (really, it's a little mean to insist on this one - so maybe play that part by ear?). It doesn't hurt to see if their brother might play the piano for you and work with his dad on your car.
• drive a Corvette! (I'm still all shivery from that one!)
  
• have friends take you to Koreana (again) and Red Lobster
  
• have your parents come up for the weekend following your birthday, just to keep things rolling

OK, really, besides the first Koreana bit everything else really was the result of having just about the most amazing set of friends and coworkers in the world. Seriously. They're not up for trade or adoption.
I wish I had more pictures of all the different things, but 12 points to whoever can guess where Tom and I are without checking out more of the pictures! (Points are useful to save up to earn decoder rings - just ask Patrick!).

Sweet Caroline

No sooner had I unpacked my bags from the lovely San Antonio excursion than I was repacking them for another flight. A few weeks ago my friend Tom tossed out the idea of me coming down to North Carolina to watch the first round of March Madness (woo hoo!). Raleigh, one of the regions hosting the championship, is serendipitously where Tom had moved 1½ years ago. I looked over my calendar and my frequent flyer miles and decided to go for it.

Raleigh is great fun, at least in the way Tom presents it. We rambled, ate great food, biked, hung out with cool people – his sis and bro-in-law, and did stuff. Stuff like visiting an art museum, wandering around a WWII battleship, playing in the splashy ocean and lying on the beach watching the stars come out. [sigh…] Oh. And we watched basketball. A lot of basketball. Because even when we weren’t watching four games on Friday and two games on Sunday in person, there were a few great games happening elsewhere that we didn’t want to miss. (Go Wisconsin!)

One of the reasons Tom is one of my favoritest people: the conversations. We’d be in the car or sitting at a restaurant, and I’d say something like, “Ok, explain to me all roles on a basketball team and how they’re supposed to work because I think I have sort of an idea about them, but I’ve never really paid detailed attention to that”. And we’d be off! My favorite one was, “Ok, tell me about all the presidents in the 20^th century, in order, because I know bits and pieces, but I don’t have a good picture of their sequence with key events.” And he did! Way, way cool. I can’t say I could recite it all back at this point, but I definitely learned a ton.

[Details – read on as your interest dictates!]

Wed. night: continue my recent run of (bad) luck with airlines, but somehow – after being assured it was impossible – made it to Raleigh, having ridden first class AND received a $150 voucher for my pains! Tour Tom’s “new” condo – small, but very, very cool. Tom’s a great pianist, and he finally got a piano again after not having one since leaving Appleton, so I get to hear lots of Rachmaninov, but also some Bach and Mussorgsky throughout the weekend. You really can do worse than having your very own private piano concert. Head to bed - both of us have to work in the morning!

Thurs: Tom goes off to work, and I launch a fight with his futon that outlasts the weekend. Can’t figure out how the darn thing is supposed to lock upright. Not fair that his bed doesn’t need to be folded up to enable normal room traffic flow. Then I call into work for a series of meetings that pretty much last the day. Tom gets home and we take off for a ramble-tour of Raleigh – trees are starting to bud, and many trees and flowers are already in full bloom. Life is beautiful. We get back and Matt and Mary (his sis and bro-in-law) have arrived and have an outstanding meal in the oven (and a bun! Mary’s pregnant!). Eat and play Pepper and have a great time.

Fri: Sleep in, then take off on bikes to pedal through the outdoor part of the art museum, wander through a bit of the indoor part, and head off to the stadium. Park our bikes closer than VIP parking and wander right in. Watch an outstanding game between Davidson and Gonzaga. Gonzaga loses, much to my chagrin. The other three games are great too. UNC is a class act, but the underdogs put up a great fight so the game is still a blast to watch. Have pulled pork sandwiches doused in a sweet vinegar sauce that’s to die for. By the middle of the fourth game I’m way past the limit of names and teams I can stay on track with.

Sat. Sleep in, then head off to Wilmington, which is right on Cape Fear. Wander through the USS Carolina, a battleship that saw a ton of action against Japan in WWII. Really well done exhibits with testimonials from soldiers who served on it. Fascinating stuff. Catch a good bit of the Wisconsin game at a local Applebee’s and get into a “discussion” about inconveniencing restaurant wait staff. Head to the ocean in time to swim and wander up and down Wright Beach, and then lay on the beach towels Matt & Mary lent us and “discuss” whether the lights we’re seeing are plans, satellites, stars or planets.

Sun: Easter! Hooray! Head to Matt & Mary’s, where we’re fed the I-can’t-stop-eating kind of waffles, and get to see and learn about their way-cool pets. Fish, cats, poison dart frogs, and a ball python. Then we tag along with them to church. They do a really cool thing where anyone in the audience is invited to go up and join the choir in singing the Hallelujah chorus. Head back to Raleigh and the next two games. Watch little tiny Davidson trounce big awesome Georgetown – chance in a lifetime to get to see that – and then UNC strut their stuff with Arkansas. UNC is just fun to watch because they’re so good, and Arkansas really fought it. Davidson has taken up the Neil Diamond song Sweet Caroline as their theme song and it's so fun to hear the audience sing it to them - the audience pretty much went nuts as Davidson made their comeback. Wind up at the Mellow Mushroom, a pizza joint (literally?) from the 70s, and then go back to the condo for another piano concert. [sigh…]

Monday: Tom goes to work, and after conceding final defeat to the futon (which really was comfy, so I'm not actually complaining), I work from his place for the morning, and haunt coffee shops with free internet for the afternoon. Tom picks me up and we check out this sweet little free trade store, and then we head to the airport. I’m on the first leg of the flight now, and if all goes well, I’ll be back at work tomorrow morning at 8:30!

The upshot: Raleigh --> cool. Go if you can.

More pictures HERE!

dance halls and dead bodies

This morning we slept in, and Linda made me pancakes! After a mellow morning, we headed to San Antonio to the Witte Museum's "Our Body: the Universe Within" exhibition. About 20 full bodies and 200 body parts are on display; all "plastinated" so they can actually be dissected and frozen into place. Apparently there are three of these floating about the country, so it's kind of goofy that I saw one here while a different one is also on display in Milwaukee. Really, REALLY fascinating stuff.

We stopped for fish tacos (hooray!!) on the way back, rested a bit, and I went for a ramble - missed the park I was aiming for and ended up exploring most of Texas! Then Linda, Linda's husband Bill, and their grandson Clayton and I headed to Gruene. Gruene (pronounced "green") Texas has been "gently resisting change since 1872". It boasts the oldest dance hall in Texas, a general store, and a bunch of other antiquey/artisan-y and tourist-type shops. Very fun. We went to the Gristmill River Restaurant & Bar and had fantastic food. I finally got some good ribs - which I sort of felt Texas owed me. All in all, lovely time, lovely food, lovely people! Linda and Bill kept telling me about all the awesome stuff I'm missing and that I have to come back and experience.

Tomrrow? Opening day of Sea World! Zah hoo! And then Sunday I head home, where I hope they've still saved a tad of snow for me to get a few more good skis in before the trees start blooming!

More pictures posted to this album.

the Alamo and the Spurs

For the afternoon I wandered around the Alamo. Beautiful grounds, and there was a speaker giving a presentation to 4th graders about the siege of the Alamo. Learned a ton! And they have beautiful plants and shrubs about - I took some pics earlier, but didn't have my camera with me during the afternoon.

Deanna's cousin Linda picked me up around 6 and we headed of to the Spurs game!! Hurray for an outstanding game happening when you happen to be there!! This is a (very far off!) picture of Timmy at the line.

phoon III

Bother. Patrick had phooned marvelously - still can't figure out how he got a picture of it! - some time ago and I completely spaced posting it. Just ran across it now, and figured it was time. Some people sure know how to make other peoples' day.

Phoon thread

Heaps o' phoons on Flickr

oh yes and a wee update

SA continues to be fun and interesting, by the way. A restaurant yesterday really tanked - I tried ordering ribs and they were horrible (thought things like that weren't supposed to happen in Texas). It's my own dumb fault for going to a chain, I suppose, but there was a group of people going there, and - me being me and all - I rated company over food selection. Happened again tonight as a matter-of-fact. They all wanted to go to Mexican - which we had just had for lunch. I compensated by getting something without cheese: baby goat! Yep, I tried it. And really liked it actually, though it was a lot of work (like lamb can be). It sounds so horrible to say "baby goat" that I got to thinking about why we see lamb and veal on menus, but they don't list goat as.... (and, the light goes on!)

I've also explored a few different bits of the Riverwalk. Thumbs still up! I like how it's all "below" - kind of like the Atlanta underground, or Seattle or something - and yet open air and with those crazy pigeony things and great masonry and bridges. It's been great fun to be here long enough to really take things in.

techknowledge conference

OK, it's really feeling impossible to be at a conference about technology and learning all week and not share something about all I've learned. So I won't get into details, but these are cool things I have picked up.

"Wikis in Plain English"
"Blogs in Plain English"
(these are very cool, even if you already happen to be one of the favored few who knows what both of those things are).

And then, did you know:

• you can text Google, and receive instant text back for phone numbers & other info? (MUCH cheaper than spending $2 a call for dialing 411!). Try it! Text to Googl (e not required if you're lazy: the numbers 46645):
• pizza 54911 [phone number, address]
  
• amzn [to get the stock price]
• ua115 [airline/flight number]
• weather paris
• 54911 to chicago [directions]
  
• define schadenfreude [to settle Scrabble arguments]
• you can go to grandcentral.com and have all your numbers and voice mails sent seamlessly to one number - and even switch between them mid-call? I know we can't get YouTube at work, so again, check this one out at home: http://youtube.com/watch?v=aAMbuX06tYg (it's hilarious!)
• you can have voice mail messages converted to text automatically (MUCH better than trying to take notes on what was said - and you can sort through them and choose which to read first)
• simulscribe.com (paid)
  
• callwave.com (free)
  

(I haven't tried any of these myself yet, so play at your own risk!) :) These are all from a talk by David Pogue of the New York Times.

I'll be curious about what you think!

to pray

And on a completely different note: your thoughts and prayers for some friends who are struggling would be greatly appreciated right now:
- my friend Jen slipped a disk in her back a few weeks ago and is still recovering; she's also got permanent knee issues that affect her doing things she's always loved to do, like run.
- my friend Katie's grandma is dying of cancer (she's an awesome woman and I already miss her - how much harder it is for the family)
- my friend Tracy is having weird health issues that are affecting her significantly
- Grant and Jen (bro/sis-in law) are heading toward divorce - very rough on the whole family.

Thank you....

Lone Star State musings

So, from everything I can tell, there really is a place called Texas. I had to fly a long time to get here, a few people have drawl-y accents and cowboy hats (yee haw!), lots of service-people about (SA has FOUR army bases), and there's a lone star painted or embedded in cement everywhere you go! (And Deanna, you were right about the men here - they're very, uh, notice-y!)

I left Appleton in the swirling storm of a LMS go-live, so I've been spending every spare moment trying to support that from afar. But I've also taken the time to be at the conference and to get to know the people attending the conference. Learning lots of cool stuff, the go-live is going well overall, and I should be able to ease off shortly a tad and enjoy myself here a bit more. I have NOT held back on enjoying the food, and the Riverwalk is a sweet, sweet place.

I went for a ramble last evening after the conference (the concierge gave me a safe route to run), and it was great to see a smidgen more of the town. I found some coolio things and captured them with my cell phone, but I can't figure out how to upload the pics! If I get 'em, I'll post 'em.

Observations:
- don't palm trees always seem unfinished somehow? (it hadn't occurred to me before, but there are palm trees in Texas. If it really is Texas.).
- I flew here from Kansas City in the seat next to a border guard who was first grouchy with me for the size of my laptop case. But then we got to talking about the whole immigration deal, and I think he had some great thoughts I hadn't considered before - I'll post more about that if anyone's interested. He really likes how Colorado is handling the issue.
- there are these pigeon-y creatures here that are most like the Tui of New Zealand as anything I would have imagined finding in the 'States (if that indeed is where I am). They make very tonal cooings and calls. Must investigate further.
- it hit 90 degrees here. Today. 'Tho tomorrow it's supposed to cool off and be in the 60s.
- I have yet to try brisket, though I believe my friend Terry would be proud of me if I did. I have, however, had the best steak in my life, the best Mexican ever (enchiladas with mole sauce!), and crab cakes. Have yet to try goat, but really can't promise that will happen. Seeing the brisket on menus here really has me half convinced that I am amusing myself in the Lone Star State after all!

BOW and scrape!

One day Jen and Joce and their friend Angela headed up north to Become Outdoorswomen. And that's what they did. After all, if a woman can winter camp/scrape herself out sleeping quarters from a snow bank, use a map & compass to find her way from one end of a parking lot to another, dogsled, skijor, and cook in a Dutch oven, what would you call her?!

Jen - a friend from Appleton who now lives with her hubby in Minneapolis area, and Joce - my college roommate - are fabulous people. Spending a weekend with them - in the context of such fun and interesting and DIFFERENT stuff, was just good ol' fashioned plain ol' northwoods fun. Can't say how well we'd (or at any rate I'd) do at any of those things without lots of coaching and help, but gee whiz pop how fun to give them a shot!

Pics | BOW

how to have a girls weekend

So last fall my friends Katie and Jen, my sis Augusta, and Amy decided it might be fun to have a girls winter weekend up in the north woods - and this weekend it happened! Unfortunately Jen couldn't make it, but Katie, Gus, Sherman (Gus's dog - and he's an "it" so the extreme girl-ness of it all didn't completely knock him out) and I got up to Amy's place in Iron River late Thursday night.
So much fun. To have a girls weekend, all you need are great girls to hang out with, great food options, one English bull dog, and plenty of things to do!
The people in this case are a given, as far as awesomeness goes.
Food: besides Katie making homemade pizza and Amy making to-order omelettes, we also made it to the Delta Diner where I just have to say the food is outstanding, and an amazing Thai place, Thai Krathong, in Duluth.
Things to do: well, we made it out nordic skiing twice (hooray!! Katie had never done it before, and took on the challenge like a pro. Gus hadn't been since she was a kid but you never would have known it! Amy hadn't been on classic trails for a long time, and got a whammy of a blister situation :( but had fun getting out there too). We watched tv, bummed around, slept, talked (of course!!), and went to Duluth to see 27 Dresses (definitely a chick flick, but definitely recommended), visit the co-op (hooray!), and eat Thai food.

All in all, quite lovely!

Also - I got the blood work results back on Thursday before I left - and the results for Celiac Disease are negative. *phwew! and thank you Lord!* So I go back for another endoscopy at the end of February (*much scrunching*), and hopefully the doc will have good things to say at that point.